Dinners over Week ends -- Crowds , the wait and the inability to ...
For the past the six to eight weeks , I have been noticing a difficulty and it showed lack of abundant good eateries in Chennai and also the fact that many people prefer eating out over week ends. I am not referring to high end luxury restaurants ( they may be crowded as well ) but those that are Vegetarian and do not harm the wallet very much. May be this situation has been in existence for a much longer time than i found out but I noticed it because we were trying to go out over the last six weeks to eight week end with friends for dinner and had a struggle to book tables and eat peacefully and connect well amongst us.
One good veggie restaurant which is expanding and runs its restaurant as part of a Hotel does not open till 7 PM and they take calls only after 6:45 Pm. And even if they pick up , they do not take any booking ." Come along , let us see " is the response. "Come at Sharp 7 PM " and you may get a table is the answer. So , you kind of rush , tension filled , call your dining partners for the day ( Friends , families ) and tell them to be on time as well and you land at 7:10 PM , the restaurant is full and wait time is at least 45 minutes. You are stunned , disappointed at hanging around . And the odd thing that you do is to stare at each table and see what stage of the meal course they are in … and keep staring till the people at the table become conscious of you.!
And when you get the table , it is like you achieved something big in life . Service is fast and you are chased out as quickly as you could be. If you think you can chat around , get the families to relax, no chance . Restaurants want to turn around each table as fast as they can and want to make as much as they can . Nothing wrong , I suppose.
The situation is the same with other places that I tried out . You have to run in , hope to get a table and finish quick dinner and it is no more fun to go out over the week ends .
End of the day , I was wondering , why were we doing these Dinners together if we cannot spend the time that we want to spend eating the food we like and socialising ?
Any thoughts ?
One good veggie restaurant which is expanding and runs its restaurant as part of a Hotel does not open till 7 PM and they take calls only after 6:45 Pm. And even if they pick up , they do not take any booking ." Come along , let us see " is the response. "Come at Sharp 7 PM " and you may get a table is the answer. So , you kind of rush , tension filled , call your dining partners for the day ( Friends , families ) and tell them to be on time as well and you land at 7:10 PM , the restaurant is full and wait time is at least 45 minutes. You are stunned , disappointed at hanging around . And the odd thing that you do is to stare at each table and see what stage of the meal course they are in … and keep staring till the people at the table become conscious of you.!
And when you get the table , it is like you achieved something big in life . Service is fast and you are chased out as quickly as you could be. If you think you can chat around , get the families to relax, no chance . Restaurants want to turn around each table as fast as they can and want to make as much as they can . Nothing wrong , I suppose.
The situation is the same with other places that I tried out . You have to run in , hope to get a table and finish quick dinner and it is no more fun to go out over the week ends .
End of the day , I was wondering , why were we doing these Dinners together if we cannot spend the time that we want to spend eating the food we like and socialising ?
Any thoughts ?
Comments
It all started with people standing near those who are sitting and eating, in T.Nagar Saravana Bhavan. They even used to do "sir-ku more konduvappa" et al.
The best thing to do is to hunt for a chaat shop (like OSB in W.Mambalam), hang out there by eating chaat items. Alt 2 would be to make a list of things to buy in advance, buy it from a take-away in SB, switch on AC in full swing and have them at home :) It works out well and you save the tips!
Best place to hang out with family during the weekends is on the restaurants in ECR. Even I have faced the situation you have mentioned several times in the city, either we have to wait for a table or somebody will be waiting for our table. There are some good restaurents in ECR which are pretty reasonable on our wallet and offers a quite dining place. But...finding a pure vegetarian hotel will be a challenge in ECR.